


doomed are those who try to run for it always catches up eventually

by starsplash



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Character Study, Enderman Hybrid Ranboo (Video Blogging RPF), Gen, Hallucinations, Hurt No Comfort, Introspection, Memory Loss, No beta we die like all of quackity’s tftsmp characters, Ranboo-centric (Video Blogging RPF), This took me way too long i procrastinated so much but it’s finally done oh boy, derealisation, dream has no home but he lives rent free in ranboo’s mind, implied panic attack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-18 15:02:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29735676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsplash/pseuds/starsplash
Summary: "Hello. "Ranboo sucks in a breath. Holds it for one, two, three seconds. He doesn’t release it."I see you’re back here again. I wasn’t sure you’d return to me."-Ranboo finds himself somewhere uncomfortably familiar.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & Ranboo (Video Blogging RPF), Ranboo & Technoblade & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 98





	doomed are those who try to run for it always catches up eventually

**Author's Note:**

> This is,,, my first work in the fandom. I'll be honest, although I've been reading my way through most of the fics for the past like,, month or two. I'm hoping this turned out alright. Please please heed the warnings in the tags!! With that, enjoy :)

Ranboo doesn’t remember.

His memory, of course, is not one to be relied on and so he places his trust, unwavering, in the book he holds close with a simple possessiveness that never fades. It never leaves his person and when it does, his memory wavers, his trust fades, and he  _ doubts.  _

The doubts trickle in slowly, at first, and it’s the little things - the quiet of the manmade room beneath the water (he doesn’t rethink the placement, he doesn’t linger on the knowledge that, without his armour, he could be trapped, in or out) with the sound echoing in the small space, the syncopated  _ dripdripdrip  _ of the obsidian tears, far too bright against the floor at his feet. The walls are thick and they encase him in darkness and they’re not smooth to the touch; no, the obsidian walls are filled with hills and ravines and rivers of water and he finds himself touching them more than he’d like to admit, running his hands and his fingers over the grooves in the stone. He hardly even fits, his head brushing the ceiling, and so he kneels or crouches or hunches over. Nothing new, nothing out of the ordinary - he can’t remember the last time he stood to his full height.

( _ He can’t remember, he can’t remember, he can’t find the book. _ )

Maybe it’s the tight, dark enclosure of the room and the dripping of the tears he can’t explain and the easy ripple of the water outside the door that sounds so welcoming, so lulling to his senses, even if he knows his fate all too well if he were to linger in it for too long - maybe it’s all of these things combined that send him spiralling each time and he  _ knows,  _ he hasn’t heard the voice in so long, he hasn’t doubted, but his book is missing and the signs remain and Dream may be imprisoned but it stops nothing.

Nothing changes, not that easily, and Ranboo is in over his head, he hopes for too much and it’s too much for the universe to allow. 

And yet here he is now, leaning heavily against the wall’s ragged and jarring surface, shoulder digging into the rock, and he’s losing himself, his sense of the Now and the Here, losing himself to the endless void of his mind once more, something that happens a little too often for comfort. There’s nothing here but him and the obsidian and the trickle of water beyond, the way it casts light upon the walls in hazy ripples through the narrow doorway - if it can even be called a doorway; it’s more of a crevice utilised as an entry-way. Sometimes it’s easier to think when he’s alone but, more often than not, the thoughts are too much, too loud in the echoing silence of his surroundings, even when the voice he dreads will return had merely been soft-spoken, prompting him again and again to remember and remember and to never forget the things he’s done and oh, he can’t remember what’s true and what is simply the catastrophising reasoning of his own self-doubt. He can’t remember, doesn’t know how, and the walls are closing in and it’s all empty and-

_ Hello.  _

Ranboo sucks in a breath. Holds it for one, two, three seconds. He doesn’t release it. 

_ I see you’re back here again. I wasn’t sure you’d return to me.  _

A choked laugh forces its way from Ranboo’s throat and he clutches at the ridged walls with grazed fingertips. “No. No, no, no  _ no,  _ I- I got rid of it, I got rid of the voice. You aren’t- You can’t be here. You’re not here, you’re not real. You’re not real.” 

He can’t tell if repeating the words is helping him or not, and he doesn’t know if he’s trying to convince the voice or himself. 

_ I am very real. As real as you and your thoughts, as real as this room. As real as the people you insist on calling friends. _

Now that’s something - something he doesn’t want to think about, doesn’t want to linger on; the last thing he needs right now is the doubt that trickles only steadier from those words alone. People who he ‘insists on calling friends’ - they  _ are  _ his friends, surely? 

Of course, there’s Phil, Philza who came to him at what may have been his lowest point as he curled away in this very room, and offered him salvation to the north, a place safe and protected and somewhere he could retreat from the conflict and the consistent reminder of his failures and of L’manberg’s downfall. The place is nothing more than a vast crater, a canyon scarring the world’s surface with rubble and spilled water, all the way down until he can’t truly see anymore. What had once been saved with water and rebuilt had nothing left, nothing but ruins. 

Ranboo doesn’t want to go back there. 

But yes - Phil and his broken wings and his smile, Phil and his unshakable loyalty to the one person he truly calls a friend. Ranboo likes to think that perhaps he might be considered a friend, too. Phil is… complicated to describe and Ranboo is too lost in his own mind to try harder to name them. Maybe he’ll forget Phil like he forgets everything, after all - he doesn’t have his book. He’s alone here with the Voice and the Walls and the Water and he cannot tell whether it is the Before or the Now and -

No. Think.  _ Remember.  _

There’s Technoblade, and surely Ranboo couldn’t forget Techno even if he tried. Techno who stands tall and strong and bluntly honest in a way Ranboo doesn’t think anyone has ever been toward him before, and yet Technoblade guards every word, every sentiment with a closed-off finality that pushes all those around him away. He gives away nothing, priding himself in his power and his actions. Ranboo thinks that perhaps Technoblade speaks more with actions than with words, anyway. That’s why he’d given him the gift - what was it again? A replacement of- of something, of - Ranboo can’t remember. He can’t remember what he gave Technoblade. Why can’t he remember?

Regardless of this, he was trusted enough to stay in the north and yet now he’s here, surrounded by obsidian tears and relentless, echoing silence broken only by the sobbing water and his own shallow breaths.

Techno and Phil are his friends, right?

_ They cannot be. You will only lead them to danger - you know what you’ve done in the past. Who’s to say you won’t lure them into a trap, or steal something of importance under their very noses as they continue to believe that you can be trusted? What if you destroy their home? _

Ranboo feels his cheeks burning, and he doesn’t know why.

“I didn’t - but I didn’t  _ do  _ anything,” he reasons, voice edging on a frantic plea for the Voice to believe his words. Is he trying to convince himself? “I didn’t blow up the community house, I didn’t- I didn’t betray anyone. No. No, I didn’t, I wouldn’t do that, you know-” Ranboo sucks in a shuddering breath, raising his gaze to look around the room, and if he looks close enough, he can see smiles etched in the obsidian cracks. “You’re supposed to be me, right? So you know I didn’t do those things.”

_ You had the disc,  _ the Voice reminds him, idly calm and resonating through his mind and hurting in ways Ranboo cannot describe. Is it a burn, a drowning sensation, a sting? He doesn’t know.  _ You had the disc, you got it from Dream. You’re helping Dream escape the prison. _

… What?

What? No. No, no - he can’t, he can’t be, not this, not now. This isn’t real. He doesn’t want another doubt resting in his subconscious state, he doesn’t want to think about that. He wouldn’t willingly break Dream out of prison, he wouldn’t wish that on anyone, so why- why would the Voice say that? It aches in his chest and in his head and he stumbles, hands out against the walls to steady himself. 

Dream is all things cruel and wrong and inherently bad. Dream hurts and he controls, he twists the words and the stories to his advantage, he is the puppeteer and the people are his puppets, tugged by his strings to do his bidding without even realising, and Ranboo - he can’t even consider the possibility. No. 

When he looks up again, he isn’t alone. 

Dream is there - his features a little off, the mask too smooth, the light of the rippling water passing away from it as if it isn’t there at all but it’s him, it’s Dream, leaning back against the wall with arms crossed over his chest, that smile boring into him the longer he stares. Ranboo thinks he can hear a ringing in his ears and he trembles there, on unsteady legs, hands grazed by walls and cheeks  _ burning  _ \- are his tears made of fire? - and he wonders if he’s dreaming. That would be fitting, wouldn’t it? 

_ You need to accept the truth,  _ Dream’s voice chides him, the words surrounding them with an unearthly quality, and his figure stands up. He seems taller than usual, head brushing the low ceiling. 

“I- I am, I’ve accepted the truth,” he manages to stutter, voice thick with something he doesn’t have words for - is he real, is he here? The words sound far too distant as they fall from his lips, and he wonders if he even really said them. Perhaps not. He can’t remember - what does he remember? “I’ve not done anything. You’re- you’re just my catastrophising, my doubts. You aren’t real.” 

_ Am I not?  _ Dream tilts his head, the angle uncomfortable, the smile standing out brighter than anything else in the room.  _ And if I’m not real, and I’m you, where does that leave you?  _

Nowhere. That leaves him nowhere, here in this empty space; this place where time is meaningless, where anything could be real or not. Is he real? It could be anything, he’s forgotten how long he’s been here already, he’s forgotten why he came - did he travel here at all, or is this simply nothing more than a dream? He feels as if he is floating, and it’s almost familiar. A comfort, really, in a moment that seems ephemeral and infinite all at once, nothing but a parenthesis in the river of Time and Space, and he’s losing himself, losing his memories all over again, losing  _ PhilTechnoTubboTommyFundyQuackityNikiJackGhostbur everyone, it’s all gone, it’s all gone-  _

He blinks, and the walls are gone.

He blinks, and the world is hazy and far too bright and there is snow under his feet and something like smoke on the breeze.

He blinks, and he is in front of a house that isn’t his, skin burning and vision blurry, something hot in his grasp. 

He blinks, and the house is ablaze, and he  _ smiles.  _

_ :)  _


End file.
